Low Productivity of Indian Dairy Animal: Challenges and Mitigation Strategies

Team Pashudhan Praharee

June 7, 2024

281

Low Productivity of Indian Dairy Animal: Challenges and Mitigation Strategies

Gopi kisan Choudhury

4^thprofessional year

College of veterinary science and animal Husbandry,

Odisha university of agriculture and technology, Bhubaneswar, 751003, Odisha

Abstract

India is among the chief producer of dairy products whole over the globe. India has surpassed the United States in milk production since las 20 years. The causes are mainly low per animal production, small herd size, land constraints, mixing of cattle and buffalo milk, conventional method of farming etc. The feed and fodder shortage, animal health and hygiene, lack of education, training, supply chain, infrastructure, low profit margin and land fragmentation etc. are challenges for which we need to plan our mitigation strategies.

Introduction

India, a country of 140 crore people, has 538.78 total livestock population according to LC2023. With such a huge number of dairy animals¹¹, India is among the chief producer of dairy products whole over the globe. Despite having all these advantages, the Indian dairy products face lot of hindrances in foreign export due to its inferior quality, which affects the country’s not only the economic status, but also its reputation because inferior quality of products shows the standard of infrastructure we have for dairy sector.

Causes of low productivity of dairy animal ¹⁶

India has surpassed the United States in milk production since las 20 years. Although the US is the largest producer of cow milk, we got the status of highest producer by addition of buffalo milk. The causes are: –

Low per animal production.

India’s production is by mass, not mass production. It signifies that whatever amount of milk we are receiving is mainly from small and marginal sources. In most of the cases, our farmers follow the ‘low input low output’ model of farming. Theu neither want to invest more, nor want to get more production.

This situation is exaggerated by poor animal health management and lack of infrastructure to advanced dairy production technology.

Small herd size

In our country, as cited above, most of the farmers are small and marginal farmers and they likely follow the ‘low input low output’ method of farming. There are some other constraints that prevent large scale farming, majorly capital and land factors. Hence our herd size is very small. There are very few instances where we can see the establishment of large-scale dairy farms and entrepreneurs. The average herd size in our country is 2 to 4 animals.

Small herd size limits the profit margin and implementation of good managemental practices which eventually declines productivity.

Land constraints.

With such a mighty population, our per capita land holding has been reduced to 1.08 hectares. With this small land, establishing a dairy farm on a large scale is very difficult. Besides capital, land is a major contradictory factor for large scale production. Due to unavailability of land, small scale farming is done, which further declines the productivity and profit margin.

Mixing of cattle and buffalo milk

We don’t have any separate channel for both cattle and buffalo milk. Both milks are collected from the same site and mixed in the majority of cases. As we can’t analyze the cow milk production separately, it limits us in implementing developmental measures to improve the cow milk production both qualitatively and quantitively as well.

Primitive stage of dairy farming

We generally follow the conventional methods of dairy farming. Some important parameters like age at first calving, lactational yield, total milk yield, etc are overlooked by our policy makers and they focus on genetic modification in order to get more milk as they consider the genetic factor contributes more towards milk productivity. Our country also lacks infrastructure for advanced methods of dairy farming.

From the above discussion, we can assume that our low productivity of cattle is multifactor based and needs a multidirectional approach to improvise it.

Challenges: –

There are several challenges faced by our dairy sector, to get higher productivity.

Feed and fodder shortage.

The population of our country is 16% of the world whereas the area is only 2%. It means that the land is very less as compared to population, which reduces the agricultural productivity. It leads to shortage of fodder and feed material. The amount of grazing land is decreasing drastically due to industrial growth which affects productivity in the long term. Access to quality feed increases milk productivity.

Health of animal: –

It also has a significant impact on animal productivity. We can expect better quality product from a healthy animal only. A diseased animal affects the output both quantitatively and qualitatively. Now a days, we need to focus on increased quality to meet the standards of the international export system.

Proper hygienic condition: –

Health and hygiene are two correlated approaches. To maintain proper healthy herds, farmers should focus on the hygiene of farms and nearby areas.

Clean cattle shed prevents many diseases which are transmissible both by animals and ectoparasites like tick and mite, mosquitoes, flies etc. It helps in prevention of many diseases which have serious economic impact like mastitis, parasitic infestation, tick fever etc.

The proper drainage system of feces and urine material helps in improving health condition and limits milk contamination with dung and urine.

The hygiene of farm workers should be taken care with utmost importance mainly the milkers and milk handlers which help in meeting the clean milk production approach.

Lack of education and training: –

Most of the farming community are illiterate and have very little exposure to advanced technologies of western nations. Lack of quality education and training procedure, farmers can’t even use the available advanced technologies.

For instance, traditional hand milking is a major source of milk contamination. Milking machines are better as it not only reduces the time but also reduces the contamination. But in rural areas, marginal farmers have no idea of this milking machine, and they prefer hand milking also they lack proper method of hand milking and avoid sanitary measures due to lack of awareness. It reduces the quality of milk to a great extent.

Breakage of supply chain: –

Dairy products, being perishable in nature, need a proper and maintained supply chain for transport. Cold chains must be maintained to transport the collected milk from the farmer to the processing unit. Breakage of the supply chain is a major drawback as it causes the wastage of huge amounts of milk and byproducts.

Land fragmentation: –

As the number of descendants increases, the original land gets fragmented. Since large lands are not available, large scale dairy production couldn’t take place. It also limits many mechanical farm operations.

Small scale dairy farming lowers the amount and quality of dairy products.

Poor returns: –

Milk price is market oriented. There is no MSP (minimum support price) like 24 agricultural products. Also, there is fat based pricing which is not very profitable to dairy farmers.

Mitigation Strategies –

Availability of surplus and nutritious feed

As we have very less per capita land as compared to developed countries, we should opt for intensive agriculture and mixed farming. Also, scientific measures should be taken to enrich the natural feeding materials with nutrients. Different cropping patterns should be followed along with genetically modified crops that can be used to get maximum output from limited land mass.
Balanced diet and feed additive addition plays an important role in increasing productivity along with improving immune status of the animal.
Farmers should be educated enough to spend money on feeding quality feed to their animals rather than spending money on medicines.
Lactating, dry, calf, heifer etc. should be fed according to their health requirements separately, so that animals will be healthy along with highly productive.
During stress environment, gap should be given in successive feeding which will help the animal in proper digestion and utilisation inside body.

Good health and hygienic measures

Health: –

It is the most neglected area in dairy farming in rural areas. Farmers are least sensitive to the health of their animals and our underdeveloped infrastructure enhances this negligence.
Less number of veterinary hospitals and staffs as compared to cattle population can be avoided by implementing developmental schemes and infrastructure improvement.
Regular vaccination is one of the golden approaches to get rid of poor health condition.

Hygiene: –

Awareness should be spread among illiterate farmers as to how good health and hygienic measures will be helpful in increasing the animal’s productivity both qualitatively and qualitatively as well.
Strict protocol should be followed regarding health and cleanliness in commercial dairy farms. Milk contaminations can be reduced by following SOP (standard operating protocol) strictly.
Various methods like mechanization of farming system, clean in place, hiring educated labor force can help in eliminating the constraints.

Education and training: –

Education is the backbone of every nation. A country with an educated community will achieve great heights in a little effort.
Extension education plays a significant role in educating farmers in rural areas. Farmers should be aware of the benefits and cost effectiveness of advanced technologies. They should be given.

some financial aid to avail new technologies. Veterinary professionals along with local leaders play a major role in educating the farmers.

Proper education will make our farming community much more advanced and as a result implementation of technology-oriented schemes will be very fruitful.

Establishment of infrastructure

Infrastructure is the only way of increasing the standards of our dairy products. As discussed above, due to perishable nature, milk and milk products need a continuous frozen supply chain which can only be provided with a developed infrastructure.
Proper established infrastructure will reduce our dependance on traditional system of farming as a result it will help us in reducing the labor cost by mechanization of farm and help in reducing milk contamination, an approach for clean milk production.

Governmental approach

Government role can help in increasing the profit margin of the farmer by deciding a fixed price margin taking account of various aspects just like MSP for agricultural products. It will help the farmer in getting a stable and effective profit margin.
Land consolidation approach can be taken to enhance the productivity. Co-operative farming, self-help groups (SHG) etc. are some of the appreciable measures taken earlier.
Schemes like Rashtriya Gokul Mission has become very popular in this aspect.

Genetic modification: –

Milk production, to a major extent, is controlled genetically. Although the environmental and managemental approaches play an important role, genetic correction still helps in overcoming these factors. The indigenous cattle lack the gene of higher milk production but have very good performance in disease resistance.
By crossing our indigenous cattle breed with high yielding foreign breed (lack disease resistance) helps in mitigating the genetic shortcomings.
There are various research centers like IVRI, NDDB, etc. which are working on these genetic alteration programme and producing new crossbreeds which are highly productive along with good performance in disease resistance.

Conclusion

Every citizen has a sincere role for the country. Neither the Government nor the farming community can increase the quality of dairy products until unless the support of every sincere citizen is there. Awareness and education will help our countrymen to utilize the advanced technologies in their benefits and will take our country’s dairy sectors to great heights.

References